Don't Force the Issue
by turtlethewriter
Summary: Bay is a mechanic with the Resistance with a past that needs to be kept secret for safety. The problem is, hiding it and herself from everyone gets lonely. Jess knows, but it's hard to have just one person that really knows you. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Commander Dameron knew, or maybe it's the worst possible thing to happen. Poe/OC. Not sure how far this'll go.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, only Bay.**

Every night, she had the same dream. Or, nightmare, really. There was a silhouette holding a bright red lightsaber, children screaming-that was all she would remember in the morning.

She knew what it was, though; a vision of the past, not something she had witnessed, sent through or by the Force for some reason. Maybe just to torment her.

She snorted, pausing for a moment in her work in the cockpit of an X-wing and drying her hands on a grease rag. The Force was funny that way-it was somewhat impossible to tell whether it was the Force as an entity sending her that vision, or if it was a jedi or sith or other force-sensitive being sending it to her to annoy or scare her.

She flipped on her plasma torch and welded a piece of the console back together, pushing the vision to the back of her mind. It wasn't causing any real problems for her yet, so there was no reason to dwell on it.

"Hey, Bay!"

"Hey, Snap," She turned to her semi-boss after turning off the torch and pushed her goggles up onto her forehead. "How goes your morning?"

"Eh, decent enough," the mechanic shrugged, then held up a flakey pastry in her line of sight. She leaned slightly out of the popped-up cockpit to see better. If he was bribing her with food that wasn't shitty protein rations, she'd do anything. "Jess brought back some baked good from her leave-"

Bay leapt out of the cockpit, jarring her calves slightly as she landed on the floor of the hangar, and shoved her plasma torch into Snap's waiting hands and took off for Jess's Y-wing that had entered only a few minutes before, where she was likely chatting with her squadron.

"I was told there was food," Bay interrupted the squadron's conversation unashamedly, but avoided eye contact with the other members.

Jessika Pava was her roommate and best friend, the only person aside from General Organa and a few other leaders of the Resistance that knew who she was. They'd gotten along the moment Jess moved from the Republic to the Resistance, despite various circumstances including Bay's need to keep her head down. However, Bay maintained a relatively quiet persona around everyone else and therefore didn't know Jess's squadron, her other best friends, at all, preferring to duck out of social events that they invited her to or victory celebrations.

It wasn't that she didn't like the pilots, or that they made her uncomfortable, even. It was, unfortunately, a necessity that she keep a low profile and a fairly small social circle. Given that every one of the pilots in the Black Squadron was extremely intelligent, it was extremely important that she avoid them-especially their Commander. Not that it was her choice, anyway.

She was at least allowed her friendship with Pava, and she was grateful for that.

So, she wasn't exactly surprised by the quizzical looks on the squadron's faces when she cheerily popped out of nowhere. Jess, unperturbed, handed her a pastry with little preamble, other than "My mom made them." Bay immediately sank her teeth into it, delighted.

She gave Jess a quick hug after her first bite, and joked, "It's amazing what butter, salt, flour, and sugar can do for you after months of protein rations."

"You're welcome," Jess replied, grinning. "Betcha wish you had a mom like mine."

"You have no idea," Bay took another bite and quickly swallowed. "My mom could burn water, and I'm not sure if it's impressive or horrifying."

"I see where you get your talent, then," Jess quipped, and smirked at her. Bay shrugged.

"Fair enough. Later, J," she gave her roommate a two-fingered salute and pivoted, making her way back to the X-wing she was supposed to be finishing up, expertly weaving her way through the morning influx of messengers with data pads. Before she was out of earshot, though, she heard the commander, and she ducked behind another ship to listen.

"You know, she seems pretty fun, at least when she's not avoiding everyone."

"She's not avoiding anyone, Poe, she's just…" Jess sighed. "There's good reason for it, I promise. It's not her fault she comes off as…"

"Standoffish?"

"Well, yeah. It's just-she feels like she has to, I guess, and it might be true."

Bay grimaced, no longer hungry. She walked away, handing off the half-eaten pastry to a passing mechanic, who quietly rejoiced. She settled back into her work, and into her thoughts.

It was hard, having to maintain a facade, pretending to be someone she wasn't. She wanted so badly to join in on conversations, to joke around with everyone else on the base, to fly with a squadron-but she couldn't risk someone finding out who and what she was. If there was a spy on base, or if an officer on leave got particularly mouthy, the First Order would find out, and they'd only be more driven to find their base.

She closed the cockpit around her, and looked at herself in the reflection of the newly-cleaned glass. It was a wonder someone hadn't figured it out yet. Her sandy blonde hair, freckled and tanned skin, bright blue eyes, and slightly clefted chin-she was the spitting image of her father. It was why her aunt so often asked her to hide her smile when she could, because anyone who had seen old holovids of Luke Skywalker would immediately know. Not to mention, if she so much as took a ship on a test run, they'd have her pinned. Hell, she couldn't even go by her own name. Or visibly carry a lightsaber.

She frowned at her own reflection, and got back to work. At least she could help the Resistance in some way, even if it was just by repairing ships.

* * *

Snap had caught on to her diminished mood, and had sent her off to droid repair to be on her own and to enjoy somewhat more pleasant company-at least, company that wouldn't constantly be trying to get her to socialize.

There was no real work to be done-the most of what she had to do was to direct an orange and white BB unit to the oil bath as it complained about scouring damage. Otherwise, she was left to her own devices as the unit chirped happily in the background, answering its occasional questions.

She propped her boots up on the workbench, crossed her arms, and frowned at the oh so familiar R2 unit that sat unresponsive in the corner. Bay was a child the last time she'd seen Artoo in action, and although he was just a droid, she missed him deeply. Not only was he an incredibly profane droid, he was also incredibly resourceful, and a friend. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't try to reactivate him, and this was no exception. But the attempt hadn't worked, and she was tired and frustrated with trying. There wasn't much more she could try, considering this time she'd attempted to go through his circuits and activate him using the Force, but had hit some kind of block. It was incredibly discouraging.

BB-8 whistled questioningly from his oil bath, as the oil was retracted and he was dried off and polished automatically. Bay smiled back at him.

"I'm just thinking about what else I can do to try and get Artoo back online," she explained, and turned back to Artoo. "Don't worry, buddy. I'm fine." BB-8 chirped in disagreement, and she cracked a grin. "Yes, I get frustrated when I can't solve a problem. But if I can't solve it, then someone else will, and that's okay."

The rolling unit came over to where she was, and gave Artoo a gentle tap with his domed head, and chirped another question.

"No, electrocuting Artoo won't work," Bay replied, and then muttered, "I've already tried like three times." The droid made a displeased noise and rolled away from Artoo and back to her, looking up at her. "Relax, Beebee-Ate, I just don't have much to do right now and I usually consider Artoo when that happens."

The droid whistled, nodding, and took an experimental spin around the room.

"Figures that a droid would tell me to get out and socialize," Bay grumbled, putting her feet back on the ground and standing up to stretch. She winced and then snickered as BB-8 gave an indignant chirp from across the room. "Sorry." She took a few steps toward Artoo, and leaned down to brush some of the dust off of his head, smiling a little. "Wonder what you could tell me about my dad if you were awake, little guy."

BB-8 chirped something rapidly that she didn't quite catch, but she didn't turn around.

"You should probably get back to your master, buddy. Wouldn't be surprised if they go off on a mission today," she said, frowning, a little distracted as she again probed through the unit's circuits with the Force, looking for anything amiss or any way to get past the block.

"Actually, we're grounded for a few days, and I decided to come pick up Beebee-Ate myself for once." Bay whirled around, startled by Commander Dameron's entrance, and quickly got to her feet.

"Commander," she greeted, nodding slightly and shooting a look of betrayal at BB-8.

"Any significant problems with him?" Dameron asked, making direct eye contact that immediately made Bay uncomfortable.

"Nope," she crossed her arms and shuffled her feet, breaking her gaze and again looking toward the droid. "He just had some scouring complaints, nothing that can't be solved by a short oil bath. He's made a couple of test rolls around the room and everything looks to be going smoothly."

"Good," Dameron nodded, winking at BB-8 for a reason Bay couldn't fathom and then turned to face her directly. "What have you been working on in the meantime?"

Bay refrained from wrinkling her nose in confusion, instead gesturing over to Artoo. "Trying to get that unit back online," Poe blinked at her, and she shrugged. "Think I've hit a block, though, doubt anyone but Skywalker himself knows how to reactivate him."

Her own reaction to saying her father's name out loud was immediate, and she failed to fight back a wince and scrubbed a hand over her face. She shouldn't have said that. But Poe didn't do anything more than move to consider Artoo, crouching down and tilting his head in a way that Bay found amusing despite the circumstances.

"What kind of block?"

"I'm not really sure," she said quickly, joining him by the droid, feeling herself warming to the subject. "I haven't found anything notable in his circuitry that could be causing the issue, and everything should work just fine-" she reached over to press a few buttons on Artoo's side, and nothing happened. "He should activate with that sequence. There's nothing wrong with his power source or anything like that, there's nothing physically there that should prohibit his activation."

She felt Dameron look over at her. "Nothing there physically?"

"Well," she drew out the word and chewed the inside of her lip, and took a moment to consider her options.

The General, her aunt, kept saying she could trust Dameron with the truth, but that it was entirely her choice. It had been entirely a mistake that Jess had figured it out, and she was petrified when she had. Would it be so bad to slowly let someone else in on the secret? That she could have been a Jedi, had the various attempts at making another school not been destroyed? That Luke Skywalker was her father?

Maybe she could just start by dropping hints. She didn't think she was ready to just say it outright, considering her own reaction at hearing or saying her own father's name. She was still angry and raw about everything-but it could help to have another person know.

Bay sighed, and fully dropped the facade, including what precautions she'd put in place to keep herself from automatically reaching out with the Force. She looked over at Dameron, and offered him a small smile.

"I'll be honest here, I haven't physically been going through Artoo's circuits, per say," she felt her lip twitch slightly, and started to grin a little sheepishly.

Poe raised an eyebrow at her, "So how exactly have you been doing it?" Bay lifted a hand and placed it on Artoo's head.

"I've been using the Force to look and feel my way around, with some success. The circuits were originally fried when I first started looking at him, but I fixed them no problem," she chanced a glance at Poe and found him looking skeptical. "I thought I was getting somewhere, but I quite literally hit a block, just not the physical kind. I'm not sure of the source, but it keeps me from getting any further into Artoo's activation mechanism."

Poe sat back on his heels, his eyes narrowed, and Bay rolled her eyes.

"Look, if you need proof I guess I can just lift something up, or you can go to General Organa-"

"No, that's not necessary," Poe interrupted, and stood up. To Bay's surprise, he offered her a hand up. She took it, and was further surprised when he kept a hold of her hand when she was standing.

"Are you sure? I promise I'm not crazy or anything."

"The General already told me."

Bay stopped cold, and stepped back, eyeing him carefully. "What did she tell you, exactly?"

Maybe her reaction was too much, but she was suddenly nervous. After all, it had been a long time since anyone knew, and the fact that it hadn't really been her decision to let Dameron in on it… It kind of sucked a little. But, to Dameron's credit, he didn't react negatively to her sudden change but instead raised both hands in a placating gesture.

"She told me about who you are, and what you can do, as well as why you keep it a secret," he explained, taking a step toward her.

"So, everything, basically," Bay crossed her arms again, and frowned. "Not ideal, not for me, anyway."

"Would you have told me everything so quickly?" Poe asked, lowering his hands and stuffing them into the pockets of his jacket. Bay shrugged.

"No, but I would have liked some warning. Or, I don't know…" she looked away, she knew what the problem was. "I guess I'm not really okay with anyone knowing, actually."

"What do you mean?" Poe asked, and leaned against her workbench next to her. Bay fought against the instinct to move away.

"Being known as the daughter of Luke Skywalker isn't something I really care for," she muttered, feeling bitterness rise in her throat. "My father is known for being an amazing Jedi, and a hero of the galaxy."

"Big shoes to fill."

Bay snorted. "That's not an issue. The problem is that everyone else knows him as a hero, but I just know him as the father that abandoned me because he couldn't stand to look at me after my mother died."

She heard Poe suck in a breath in surprise, and felt him turn to her. She grimaced and covered her face with her hand.

"Yeah, shouldn't have said that. Sorry. I should, uh," she cleared her throat and rubbed her palms against her legs, back to avoiding eye contact. "I should get back to work in the hangar," she murmured, and quickly left the repair room. She knew he was about to say something, but she didn't want to hear it, too sensitive to the subject matter.

She paused in the hall, considering going to her aunt and demanding an explanation. But she was busy, she could feel that, and it was best that she just accept her decision and move on. Dameron was her right-hand man, after all, so it made sense for the General to trust him with information about her family.

So, she moved on past the hangar, knowing she wasn't needed, and moved outside into the sun. She could use some time with nature to calm her mind.

* * *

 **A/N: As said in summary, this is more of a test for me. I'm not entirely sure whether I'll continue this, it's more just something I felt like doing, and will most likely update sporadically. Not sure how far it'll go, but I do have some fun ideas! Also, I love Poe. Very much. Thank you JJ for these good new characters.**

 **Review if you want, tell me what you think about it and what I should do with it, if I should continue, etc. Thanks homies**


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a long time-months, really-since she had last meditated.

Her father had always been lenient about it, saying that there was no reason to meditate if you didn't feel the need. Of course, at the time, he had probably just been saying it to make her feel better. She was young, and terrible at keeping still, so meditation simply didn't work for her.

Bay smiled at the memory; it was bittersweet, and some parts were painful. She had been so distraught about her own failure to meditate, simply because her older cousin, Ben, had such a knack for it. Ben, she had thought, was always her father's favorite student.

Now, she couldn't blame him. Looking back, Ben had been the perfect pupil, attentive and calm, essentially worshipping Luke's teaching. Always doing as asked, never getting angry.

Perhaps that was why it was such agony when everything went wrong.

The red lightsaber appeared in her vision, and the children screamed-but then it was replaced by something familiar.

She saw that day, in horrible detail. Ben, or Kylo Ren, as he called himself then, with the strangely constructed red lightsaber, their friends screaming around them. She saw herself, just a teenager, terrified and trembling and holding her mother's lightsaber aloft, waiting for her own flesh and blood to strike her down.

The scar on her side burned, and she was ripped from the vision.

She hated meditation, because every time she came out with a feeling of intense dread and deja vu.

She missed her father.

The trees around her swayed peacefully in the wind, oblivious to her pain even as the Force swirled around her, desperate to comfort and calm her. The problem was that she _was_ calm. This time, at least. She didn't need the Force to help her or calm her down. She didn't want it to, either.

So, she sat back on her hands, and watched the clouds drift overhead, mulling over the vision, and, with some feeling of acceptance, the fact that Poe Dameron knew who and what she really was.

Meditation had helped, perhaps, just a little bit. Feelings of fear, uncertainty, worry-all dispelled into the Force, which ate it up like a tauntaun seeing carrots for the first time.

With a sigh, Bay stood up and brushed her legs off, and noted that the lightsaber at her side felt heavier than it usually did.

She wondered, not for the first time, if it was due to her father messing with the Force that she never had visions of his location.

Realistically, she could try to pinpoint his location using the Force-she knew she was powerful enough to do so. However, that would risk the First Order noticing and discovering her location, along with the rest of the Resistance.

She went back in the direction of the repair room, newly determined to get something out of the unresponsive R2 unit. She wasn't the only one that needed her father.

* * *

Reentering the room, she was relieved to see that Poe had left. She didn't know if she was prepared to deal with that particular situation yet. The commander's BB unit was gone as well, and Artoo stood alone and dormant in the corner.

Bay kneeled in front of him, and pressed her palm to his domed head. She would still be careful with her probing, but she had to know what was keeping him from coming online.

Ever so slowly, she inched her consciousness into Artoo's circuits and allowed her senses to diffuse outward, following the vibrations and swirls of the Force. She closed her eyes, pressing further, until she came to that same block. This time she didn't withdraw, though.

Experimentally, she pressed against it a couple of times, and found that it was stronger than she anticipated. She tried again, and again, until-

Bright, pure white light exploded behind her eyelids-she knew this Force signature-and she was pulled into a vision. First Order ships and Troopers descending on a sandy planet, Poe-was that Poe?-firing at a familiar silhouette, a man in a tan jacket, then a girl in off-white rags, snow swirling around them, holding a blue lightsaber that hurt to look at, an enormous, eerie figure of a mangled man surrounded by the dark, lightning from the tips of a Sith Lord's fingers, the hallway of an unfamiliar ship, a recognizable red lightsaber running through the chest of-

She was pulled away, gasping for air, overwhelmed and _terrified_ but someone was there with her, quiet and soothing with a Force signature of perfect golden light, and the familiarity _hurt_ so much that she wanted to run away from it, but she couldn't, and so sank into its embrace.

She struggled to regain control, to pull her senses away from the hyperfocus around her, but she couldn't stop shaking, so she focused everything she had on whoever had started to hold her. She wasn't surprised when she discovered that it wasn't, actually, her mother. Her mother had been more of a bright sunshine yellow, but this was-

Poe was a rich, soothing gold. He was worried, because he _cared_ , and she saw how she had looked from his perspective and shuddered. For a moment, she basked in the peace of his mind, careful not to probe anywhere, only feeling what he felt on a surface level, at least until her own mind quieted.

She was regaining physical sense, slowly but surely, and felt him slowly dragging his palm up and down her spine, his breath on her neck as he whispered to her, and his arm around her waist as he pulled her closer to him. She was clutching the lapels of his jacket, shivering and burying her face in the warmth of his collarbone. She was also muttering "No" over and over again, and managed to regain control of her own voice as she shut herself up.

Force, it had been a long time since she'd lost control like that.

Usually she could adjust the rate of her visions, and how many she had in one day. Meditation had, apparently, left her mind more open to the Force, and had allowed her father's message to really get through to her.

Well, she got it. Loud and clear.

"If you find me too soon, things will be much worse than this."

And for the first time, her resentment of him died. He was afraid, the same as everyone else. Because he wasn't invincible, he wasn't an undefeatable Jedi Master. He was Luke Skywalker, and he was a father and a widower who loved his family too much to put them in danger.

Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she stifled a sob. She missed him. She loved him.

A presence brushed against her consciousness, just barely noticeable. It was a reassuring bright white light, gentle and calm and so loving. It was only there for a moment, but she got the message then, too.

Her father hadn't forgotten about her. He loved her. He loved his family, and he was sorry.

Quietly, she wept into Poe's shirt, relieved and scared and so, so grateful all at the same time. She wasn't abandoned, but protected, and fiercely loved. When her father withdrew that small portion of his consciousness from hers, Poe's golden warmth replaced the loss she felt, and she started feeling a little embarrassed.

Here she was, crying into the chest of someone she barely knew.

And yet, she was struck by it, even as her tears dried up and her shaking died down.

He was kind, and he cared, despite not knowing her at all. He had recognized something was wrong, in a way that others wouldn't have, which showed that he was at least a little bit Force sensitive. Her aunt had trusted him with some incredibly dangerous information, and Bay found that she trusted him, too.

So when she pulled away, she didn't bother to put her usual personal and emotional safeguards back up. Poe had more than proven that she didn't need to.

She registered, dimly, that she was still essentially in his lap, and scrubbed her face with her sleeves. Then she smiled at him; it was small, but she didn't hold back from it.

"Thank you," she murmured, and found it hard, for once, to look away from his eyes. He had deep, dark, warm brown eyes that searched her intensely while still somehow being gentle and concerned. His expression was slightly pinched, betraying his worry, and the Force resonated around him in a way that immediately had Bay's attention. "I haven't had visions as bad as that for…" she shook her head, and looked down at her hands. "It's been a long time since I've lost control of that."

Poe was quiet, and she was surprised when he took her hand in his.

"I heard you, somehow," he said, very softly, and her eyes snapped back up to him. "You were screaming, not out loud, but…" he swallowed. "You were in so much pain."

"I-" she winced. "I'm sorry. I wasn't really in control, and you're at least somewhat Force sensitive, so it would be easy for you to sense me in the throes of something like that." Poe frowned.

"You were in my head," he stated, this time really searching her. "You were calming down, and I felt you. Or…" he paused. "Saw you? I don't know."

"I'm sorry," Bay interjected quickly, "I needed to calm myself down and your presence is incredibly soothing so I sort of took advantage of that, but I promise I wasn't invasive or anything, I didn't go perusing your mind or anything."

"No, I know you didn't, I was just curious about why," he was no longer frowning, but still looked concerned. "You were lavender."

This brought Bay up short.

"Huh?"

"When I felt you in my head, you were lavender. It's my favorite color."

"I…" she paused, then smiled a little. "Oh."

Poe caught her gaze again, a matching smile on his face, his eyes curious. "What does that mean?"

"It's, uh," she found herself a little thrown, surprised by how much she wanted to answer his questions. "It's called a Force signature, or at least that's how I learned it." Poe tilted his head, so she elaborated. "Anyone that's at least a little bit sensitive to the Force has a glow and a color that permeates through the Force, and if you are open to the Force, you can see that color. My father's is white, my mother's was a bright yellow, and I suppose mine is lavender."

"Huh," he sat back on the heels of his palms, apparently not minding that she was still in his lap as he stretched out his legs. "Do users of the Dark Side have a color?"

"No," she responded immediately, thinking back to one of her worst memories. There was no light, no color when Ben had attacked her.

She had a brief flash of a red lightsaber, but not that of Kylo Ren. It was the usual simple construction, but the face behind it changed. First it was a dark hooded figure, one she recognized as the Sith Lord her grandfather had taken down, then a man with red and black skin and yellow eyes, some kind of droid, then her grandfather as a young man. The color faded from the vision, and her grandfather looked at her with imploring eyes.

She blinked out of it, and glanced at Poe, who didn't seem to have noticed, but still looked at her consideringly.

"Do I have a color?"

Bay found it difficult to hold back a smile, and blushed.

"Yes, you do."

Poe quirked an eyebrow, his lips twitching. "I'm not gonna be upset if it's pink or something."

"Well, I, uh," she bit the inside of her lip, and decided to be candid and let her smile have free reign. She grinned at him. "I'm about to be really sappy, so don't make fun of me."

"No promises," Poe quipped immediately, but some surprise showed in his eyes, probably from her attitude. She just shrugged.

"You're a really warm, liquid gold, like a sunset over an ocean," she said, the words escaping her before she could really filter them. "I've always loved to see people's Force signatures because of how unique they are, and you're no exception. It's…" she stared at the ceiling to avoid looking at him. "You're really comforting. It felt safe to let myself sink into your signature because it's completely full of Light."

There were a few beats of silence, and Bay just let her discomfort diffuse into the Force, embracing the fact that she'd been honest with someone for the first time in a while.

Then-

"Thank you."

Poe's voice was soft, and she looked at him with surprise, noticing for the first time that the same gold she spoke of was reflected in his eyes. Because she was still open to the Force, some of it even showed through his skin, giving him a golden glow. She had the brief insane thought that she never, ever wanted that to dim. She wanted to brush off his response and how it affected her, say that she'd told him she'd get sappy, but it didn't feel right.

"You're a good person, Poe. I'm sorry I was prickly earlier, and I'm…" she quirked a half smile at him. "I'm glad you know who I really am, and I'd like to be myself with you, if that's okay."

His answering smile was blinding.

"If this conversation is you being yourself, I would really love to see more of that." He held out a hand, and she raised an eyebrow as he winked. "Friends?"

Her smile grew, and she shook his hand.

"Friends."

* * *

 **A/N: Wow here I am again! This is a. Emotion one. Spoiler alert: a lot of this fic is gonna be surrounding emotion. Also, lots of bullshit about the Force. I don't really care about whatever the canon specifics might be, since I've always had my own headcanons about how it works, how it's tied to emotions, etc. It's fun to play with that stuff, and isn't that what fanfiction is for? I think so.**

 **Thanks to those of you that reviewed, favorited, and followed! It's neato to get a response to this stuff. There are some quick fixes in this chapter that aren't really quick fixes; Bay's still gonna have a hell of a time learning to be a Good Friend who is Open with emotions, as well as dealing with the emotional fallout (still) of Luke essentially abandoning her. Also, visions are fun as hell to write, I've always liked to think of them as being as disjointed and hard to remember as dreams. Next chapter gets into some of Leia's feelings on the issue.**


End file.
